Vaccinated patients with blood cancers experiencing breakthrough COVID-19 infections remain at high risk for severe or critical disease and death, new research shows.
Furthermore, it was found that patients with lymphomas were more at risk than those with other haematological malignancies.
The study, led by Dr Livio Pagano, from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome, Italy, is the first to report data on the incidence of breakthrough COVID-19 infection in blood cancer patients.
The research team looked at data from EPICOVIDEHA, an international open web-based registry for patients with haematological malignancies infected with SARS-CoV-2.
The findings, outlined in a letter to Blood, show that out of 3,801 total cases in the registry there were 113 reports of SARS-CoV-2 infection post-vaccination in people with blood cancers, with more than three-quarters occurring in those who had received two doses of vaccine.
Within the breakthrough group, 79 (60%) had a severe or critical infection, and 75 (66%) were admitted to hospital. Of those hospitalised, 16 (21%) were admitted into an intensive care unit, of which 10 required mechanical ventilation.